Sári Gábor
Sári Gábor | |
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| Born | 5 February 1916 Etra, Alscia |
| Died | 18 December 2016 (aged 100) Velouria, Nerveiík-Iárus-Daláyk, Gylias |
| Occupation |
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| Known for | Founder of Imperial SA |
| Net worth | Ŧ15 billion (c. 1964) |
Sári Gábor (Gylic transcription: Şari Gabor; 5 February 1916 – 18 December 2016) was a Ruvelkan–Gylian publisher, businesswoman, socialite, and actress. She and her sisters founded Imperial SA, which became Gylias' largest publisher of low-budget potboiler works. Outside of her business career, she was famed for her tongue-in-cheek "wicked" image and extravagant lifestyle, and became known as "Gylias' most robbed woman".
Early life
Sári Gábor was born on 5 February 1916 in Etra. Her family had fled Ruvelka and had settled in Alscia; they were opposed to the Ruvelkan Socialist Republic and supported the Imperial Separatists during the Ruvelkan Civil War.
She had an older sister, Margit (1915–1997), and a younger sister, Edit (1919–1995). From childhood, she was often nicknamed "Sárit" to match the names of her sisters. They all attended school in Alscia, although only Margit went on to study finance at the Imperial University of Etra.
Career
Acting
Sári's first appearance on stage was in 1934. She and Edit pursued acting careers in earnest, although Sári recalled "it became obvious early on that Edit was more cut out for it."
She appeared in several films produced in the Free Territories.
Her more serious film and television roles practically disappeared in the 1960s as her business career took off. Her subsequent appearances were largely send-ups of her public image, in particular her robbery victim status.
She was also a regular guest on television shows, including an appearance on What Do I Do? as a mystery guest.
Imperial SA
Sári founded Imperial SA in 1948, together with Edit and Margit. The publishing house specialised in fast-paced, often formulaic, explicitly entertainment-focused works — what would be called pulp fiction, airport novels, or simply potboilers elsewhere.
Sári played a central role in the company as its editor, while Margit assisted with accounting and Edit with arranging illustrations. The sisters avoided the lurid and exploitative tendencies of similar literature, and instead shrewdly capitalised on the spirit of the times, reflecting the prefigurativism of the Free Territories and exuberance of the Golden Revolution. Sári largely devised the ideas and hired others to write the stories, which would be completed by Gauchic illustrations.
Sári embraced her subsequent reputation as the "queen of trash", and nurtured ambitions to be an Arlette Gaubert in the field. Indeed, Imperial wound up dominating the market, consolidating through purchases of competitors. Although the establishment of the National Prices Board deprived them of the ability to charge inexpensive prices, the "cheap" and functional quality remained in their writing, plot points, and short length. Edit credited Imperial's success to the feelgood tone of its works, which largely steered clear of serious subjects and remained "relentlessly lighthearted", as Esua Nadel memorably described them.
Imperial expanded after the Liberation War, applying its same strategy to other fields: comics, budget albums, and B movies. Several well-known Gylian writers, artists, musicians, and filmmakers began their careers working at Imperial. The company also established a recording studio, Imperial Boardroom, in Landráy, which gained renown in later years.
Sári harboured ambitions to become a publishing magnate, but these had to be pursued within the bounds of the Economic Code, with its strong competition law provisions to prevent concentration of wealth. She brought various publishing and media companies into her business empire, using methods such as outright purchase, buying up controlling shares on the Gylian Stock Exchange, and having Edit and Margit buy shares or join management boards as her proxies.
At the start of the 1960s, Imperial was already Gylias' largest publisher, and it remained so well into the 2010s. Sári used a variety of methods, some skirting the edge of legality, to maintain this status. Once a competitor got big enough to plausibly threaten it, she would start a campaign to drive it out of business or absorb it into the Imperial group. Simultaneously, she maintained good relationships with small publishing houses, treating their staff often to indulgent lunches, which earned her the nickname "the queen of schmooze".
Imperial's dominance had a great impact on Gylian literature: it instilled a comforting quality in mainstream Gylian literature, which adopted the brevity and jovial tone as standards. Imperial's works usually gained acceptable reviews from journalists, and Sári often proclaimed that the company stood for "well-written mediocrity", arguing that "ordinary" books should have no less effort and care put into them than "serious" works. This earned her comparisons to Saorlaith Ní Curnín, Jenny Ford, and Şaisa Tausi, who similarly used their influence to steer various areas of popular culture towards positive and playful qualities.
Indeed, Imperial was the first publisher to adhere to the Good Practices Code, and its influence ensured its spread in the field of literature.
Imperial's ventures into other fields failed to match their dominance of literature, but they still served to expand their ethos into other areas of pop culture. One thing Sári took pride in was the consistent praise Imperial received for portraying happy, fulfilling relationships and marriages in its works. Sári helped achieve this quality by hiring Estelle Thompson as an editor and writer — Estelle brought the full gravitas and discipline of her fame as the author of How to Write Romance to the task, with strong results.
Public image
Sári cultivated a glamorous image with an extravagant lifestyle to match. As the founder of Imperial SA, she humorously presented herself as a "caricatured capitalist", caring more for commercial success than artistic merit. She jokingly boasted that despite literature's aspirations to high art, most Gylians owned and read more Imperial books than literary classics. This contributed to her "wicked" image, and imparted a "naughty thrill" to buying Imperial releases.
Sári's relentless, tongue-in-cheek self-promotion played a large role in Imperial's success. She appeared in many short films that comically portrayed her as a "bad influence", steering people away from high culture in favour of more comfortable and enjoyable Imperial books instead. She enjoyed portraying herself as a gadfly, and even created merchandise such as badges reading "I hate Sári" to market to people who disliked her. When one newspaper printed a caricature of her attempting to swallow Gylian literature whole, she loved it and had it framed in her office.
In film and television, she was known for her thick Ruvelkan-accented English, penchant for calling everyone "dahling", and sly wit, manifested in memorable quips about her private life and her financial success. The Nyretak Times commented that "she made her life into a genial joke, and herself into its punchline".
Her name was adopted into Gylian English as a slang term for wealth — generally in the form "şari" or the phrase "Sári Gábor rich". This was mainly because for most of the Golden Revolution, she was alone as a high-profile businesswoman who openly bragged about her wealth in a way laced with naughty wit.
According to her sister Edit, Sári "found it particularly riveting that it was a Ruvelkan who defined what wealth meant in the minds of Gylians". This was because of her background as the child of refugees from the Ruvelkan Civil War, and the irony that Ruvelka, Tyran's first socialist state, was represented by a flamboyant businesswoman like herself.
Robberies
Sári's conspicuously wealthy image brought an unusual distinction: that of being "Gylias' most robbed woman". At the height of her career, her residence was repeatedly targeted for robbery, mainly stealing clothes, jewelry, and cash.
Sári was famously good-humoured about the robberies, refusing to file charges against the perpetrators and simply buying more goods afterwards. She also let Ranyi Sesyk live in her mansion for a period to avoid police attention.
The string of robberies ended in the 1990s, after she had exhausted her wealth and conspicuous consumption. The total value of things stolen from her is estimated at nearly Ŧ3 billion.
Politics
She was a supporter of ARENA, and she was a close friend of Emilia Malandrino, Şaisa Tausi, Samantha Thompson, and notoriously, Kaþi Mofat. She was a significant donor to ARENA, and enjoyed teasing Emilia that while she was the leader of the party, Sári was the one holding its purse strings. The patronage of Sári, Şaisa, and others is credited with accelerating ARENA's transformation into a purely image-based party revolving around "androgynous strongwoman camp".
She stood in the 1976 presidential election as an independent candidate unofficially backed by ARENA. She ran a self-parodic campaign, poking fun at the oncoming wretched decade and positioning herself as a "rich strongwoman" who could solve Gylias' problems. She promised to spend her fortune stimulating the Gylian economy and ban the Revolutionary Rally, and capitalised on her image with the joke slogan "You know you want to". She finished third in first preference votes.
She attended the Decleyre Summit and became a participant in the Social Partnership Program, eventually donating her entire wealth to it.
Death
Sári's later life was plagued by health problems, and she spent her last 5 years on life support. She died on 18 December 2016 of cardiac arrest while in a coma in hospital, aged 100.
Private life
Sári was married 9 times, with no children. Repeated marriage was a common trait in the family — Edit was married 5 times, Margit 6 times — and it inspired some of her best-known quips.
She was close to her sisters throughout her life, although their relationship was sometimes competitive. Edit's autobiography criticised her focus on the success of Imperial SA, commenting that "our needs were too often subordinated to Sárit's."